Gasworks To Dome

Collerston House Session

00.22. Shops in Boord Street (going North). You had the Post Office, greengrocers, fish shop, Mitre/Dorringtons, brick wall with two gasometers behind. Then my Mum’s café, The Victory. Then next door was the paper shop, empty shop, another sweet shop, two cafes on the corner, then when you go around the corner, there is the toilets on the corner, Ordnance Crescent, then around the back there there used to be bungalows (the ‘motel’ and showmen’s houses in between the two loops of Ordnance Crescent over the top of the Blackwall Tunnels). Where’s this? Don’t know where that is. Could be before my time - because it’s a tram. But there was trams when I was little..

1.15. 58 tram. That’s the Mitre Pub. Definitely. That’s the Mitre sign. Gasometers. What’s the other big thing?

2.15. New slide. Where was this then? Too dark. Looks like Terry Arms Café, I’ve got a better picture. That big building.. ‘The Terry’. Boord Street and the other side is Grenfell Street.

3.45. Mrs Mardell used to sleep in the top room. What’s at the back there? Grenfell Street. I lived above The Victory further down there. Lived there until I was 13. Dad died there. Gas Works dances every Saturday night. Really good.

6.13. Piper’s/Badcocks. Looking from Cutty Sark pub. Telcon boiler house. Barges in Piper’s Yard. Big sign. Tunnel Refineries sign by Sea Witch pub. Right next door is Bay Wharf barge yard. Only about 10. Fell in river with doll’s pram. Full of mud. Banned for a week from going out.

7.53. Next slide. That looks like… something at the bottom. Don’t know what that is. Could be.. River Way? No... too many houses. Didn’t there used to be more?

9.30. Next slide. Anyone got any idea? J. Owliss? No-one knows.

10.20. Next slide. Redpath Brown. River Way. My dad worked there. Crane driver/slingers. H-irons for building. Lovely. Really good. Norman Steels. Closed down for all this Minnellium stuff. Ruined Greenwich.

11.00. Next slide. That’s still there. Knows that well. Courting area. Alley - by side of Bay Wharf. Leads round to the river.

12.20. Next slide. Don’t know.

12.40. Next slide. Very old pictures. Church in background. V.J. Day? Coronation?

13.15. Next slide. Side of Redpath Brown? Telcon. Allotments in front. By the Pilot. Corner of Blackwall Lane and Tunnel Avenue where car wash is now. Used to be a garage. Slaughterhouse. Boy Bagwash. I used to work there.

15.13. Next slide. Gloucester Circus. Take that out!

Next slide.

Next slide. Chimney in background. Power Station? 1933 from dress. Redpath Brown. River Way. Could be Tate & Lyle over the water.

Next slide. Two lads? Girls? Redpath Brown? Not the same chimney though.

Next slide. Lovell’s Wharf?

21.15 Why is there a bridge? Not a bridge. Not that old. 1960s. Ford Consul. Boord Street, Grenfell Street? Azof Street? Picture between the gasometers looking towards Bay Wharf?

23.40. Is that a castle up the top?

24.25. Power Station. No.. no 4 chimneys. Not 2.

25.33. Looks like a cinema. Odeon up the top. Granada. Isolated down there. H sign for hospital. Workhouse. I’ve got pictures of all that.

26.40. Coronation Coach. Geezer there. Who’s that? Can’t see his face.

27.00. Old cable layer. Where I worked. My chimbley. Big one there on its own. Where the Cutty Sark pub is. How do you know it’s a cable layer? Worked there for 40 years. John McKay. Ocean Layer. Made cable went all over the world. Undersea, everywhere. Made repeaters. Enderby House. Good picture. The Star.

28.55. By Lovells’s Wharf. Wimpey’s this side, Lovell’s that side. Definitely. No it ain’t! See this fence here.. that’s where I used to go and have a shower. Down Telcon. Hand rails all around now. Used to have all my coal delivered out there. Came up by river. Piper’s Wharf. Up the Alley there? No, next one down. Led in to ‘the firm’. This photo with lamp standard in it. See this? That where they just built all the new houses. Old Tea Store right opposite. Still building now.

30.30. Azof Street.. two ladies outside shop. Changed hands several times. Moles up the road. Every street had one. Only places to get ‘tick’.

31.20. Next slide. Same place. Other side. Clean.

31.53. Next slide. Old charabanc. Who can tell us about the beanos. Every summer. Throw pennies out.. throw money out to the kids. Pennies and halfpennies.. no silver and that. Can you remember that far back? Ooo Ethel!! In the 30s. Incapable when they got home - drunk. Where did they go? Southend.. Margate… all those places.. they were the favourites. ‘Throw your mouldies out’! All the kids used to pick it up from the ground.. used to fight for it. That was an experience. Repeated for Rib.. Lewis’s used to run them. 5 bob. Song. Vote.. vote.. vote.. for Mr Coomsie.. chuck Mr. Palmer out the door.… Big day. Don’t do it now.

35.28 Next slide. Low-line crane. Behind man’s legs…. Anchor.. Enderby Wharf? Machines. That crane by the look of it.. no.. different jib.. solid. Three German pleasure cruisers. Nearer to war they didn’t let them come in. Trips to Margate. Spy fear. Stopped them War started. Used to come up every summer. Nothing now.

37.00. What’s that? A shop. By the Arch down Greenwich High Road. What arch? Railway arch (Angerstein Branch).. before flyover. Blackwall Lane? Corner by Meridian House. Glenister Road. Glenforth Street. Where Lord Devonshire is now. David Steel (used to work at Telcon) lived in first house. Off licence on that corner. Blackwall Lane.

39.00. All I can remember in Blackwall Lane is the sweet shop. Open the door and went down slope. Am I right? The bag wash. Don’t remember the houses next door. Wool shop, Bonners. Fish & Chip shop. Off licence. Across the road was a tyre place. Then a big Café. Ahh. Well.. before the betting shop that was Arnolds. Opposite my school. Glenister. That’s what it looks like. We lived along there didn’t we? Down the end

40.00. Next one. Eth All’s. Ohh. Know that one. That was the shop that never never had nothing. Eth Alls! Leather Merchants. Down your end. Halls is sweet shop opposite Greenwich Swimming Baths. This place? Looks like down where I live. Before my time.

42.10. Ohh look.. Look at that. That house had bay windows didn’t it. Couldn’t tell you where that is.

43.30. Washing across street. Always had lines across. Eastney Street. One house to another.